Dangers ahead for El Salvador

Column/Barry Klinger

Sometime last year, Ruben Zamora happened to speak with a member of El
Salvador's extreme-right ARENA party in a foreign embassy in San Salvador.
Zamora, leader of the leftist "Democratic Convergence" coalition, was
surprised to find that he agreed with the rightist about many things: the
US-backed, corruption-racked Christian Democratic government had failed to
address El Salvador's problems, the economy was a mess, and the protracted
civil war was a slow motion disaster. The rightist said he had a solution
to the never-ending war.

Rather than fighting for another decade, he said, the military should
kill about 100,000 people in a six-month span and then have nine and a half
years to rebuild.

The FMLN guerrillas fighting the government have recently proposed
another way to end the war. They say that if the elections are postponed
for six months in order to allow the Democratic Convergence to compete in a
fair race, the FMLN would agree to a cease-fire and accept the results of
the elections.

The Salvadoran ruling parties immediately rejected the offer. But the
Bush Administration is worried about El Salvador's war becoming an
albatross around its neck, and responded favorably. Now ARENA and the
Christian Democrats are groping for ways to neutralize the proposal without
being seen as intransigent.

Why has the FMLN rejected previous elections?

We in the United States tend to forget that elections are necessary but
not sufficient for democracy. Even the Soviets have plenty of elections. In
1980, literally one tenth of El Salvador's population marched in the street
on behalf of the left. Yet by 1982 military repression made it impossible
for the left to run for office. The very process of voting is intimidating:
the ballot hardly conceals the voter's choice, and voters must drop the
ballot into a transparent box while soldiers look on.

The massacres of 1979-1983 decimated the nonviolent left, but the
decrease in murders by 1984 has led to a renewed explosion of political
organizing. Imagine, just a few years after the army was machine-gunning
demonstrations in the streets, there are again tens of thousands of
impoverished people brave enough and desperate enough to march. Despite
death threats, exiled politicians such as Zamora and Guillermo Ungo
returned to El Salvador last year. Ungo decided to run in the elections
(whenever they are held) as the candidate of the Democratic Convergence.

We should not let the fact that the government now murders "only"
hundreds a year rather than thousands convince us that the military has
stepped down. Just the other day, President Jose Napoleon Duarte announced
that he would abide by the military's decision on the FMLN proposal, rather
than the other way around. More ominously, death squad activities have
risen markedly in the past year. The people have freedom -- as long as they
shut up.

Unfortunately for Zamora and other potential victims, ARENA already
controls El Salvador's Legislative Assembly and key sectors of the
military, and will probably win the presidency in the March 19 elections
this year. Unfortunately for ARENA, the FMLN has been winning large parts
of the country.

The FMLN has stepped up attacks on the military, including a daylight
attack on the National Guard base in the capital. Recently, the rebels have
also intimidated two thirds of El Salvador's official mayors into
resigning, and the military is afraid to travel on many roads in the
countryside, even during the day. A few years ago, US officials were saying
that United States aircraft, training, advisors, and money had all but
defeated the guerrillas. Instead, the rebels created an alternative
government in the quarter of the country where they are strongest and
extended the war to the rest of El Salvador. According to eyewitness
accounts such as Charlie Clements' Witness to War, the
rebel-sponsored government consists of village councils elected by local
peasants.

FMLN representatives imply that if the government does not respond to
their peace offer with some meaningful counter proposal, they intend to
escalate the war to a general insurrection.

Thus the situation is a picture of instability. As the military toys with
the idea of a massacre, and the guerrillas threaten to topple the
government, each player has incentive to strike first. There are also
constraints. If the guerrillas strike prematurely, the government might
slaughter all their civilian supporters. If the military reverts to "total
war," Congress might withhold US aid.

Or it might not. While in El Salvador last month, Vice President Dan
Quayle demanded respect for human rights, but refused to say the United
States would condition continued US support on such respect. (Actually
Quayle said he "condoned" human rights violations, but we assume he meant
to say "condemned"). Would the money keep flowing during a death squad
rampage, as it did under President Carter? Would Bush send our troops if
the rebels were on the verge of winning? No one knows.

This column leaves huge gaps in the story. I challenge you to fill those
gaps for yourselves. I challenge you to find out about that small country
where the United States has given so much money to murderers and thieves. I
challenge you to use those times when you are fed up with problem sets to
read Clements, or Chomsky, or Armstrong and Shenk, or NACLA Report on the
Americas, or Zeta Magazine.

Look at El Salvador because maybe, just maybe, our attention today is
groundwork for preventing a bloodbath tomorrow.

who

Barry Klinger, a graduate student in the Department of Earth,
Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, is a member of the MIT Committee on
Central America.